Today is the last game of the regular season. It seems like just a week ago we were anticipating Training Camp. Eighty-two games doesn’t seem like that many when you only have one left.

We’ll be playing the San Jose Sharks at the AAC for the last game. Before the trade deadline, we were anticipating a tense matchup that might decide who wins the Pacific Division, or whether one of us would be able to catch Detroit for first overall.

Then the Sharks won every game they played and the Stars lost almost every game they played and here we are. A meaningless game that we’ll still probably lose.

I don’t like it when the regular season ends. I have a love-hate relationship with the playoffs, but my relationship with the regular season is all love. When it comes to the end, it’s the first warning that hockey is almost over.

I love the beginning of the season when the schedule stretches out before me to such a distance that I can’t see the end of it. It seems like hockey will be around all the time from now on.

This I-love-hockey I-hate-hockey I-love-hockey I-hate-hockey roller coaster is starting to wear on me.

The Stars have won one game in March. Out of six! They lost 2 games in all of February! Out of 14!

I’m sorry about all the exclamation points, but I’m just so beside myself with panic. And yes, a little bit of rage. (Can you have a little bit of rage?)

This is exactly what I feared when the trade deadline was looming. We have won two games since then and I’m just about ready to stop counting the first one, because it was obviously a fluke!

I’m not going to claim that I knew putting Holmqvist in net was a bad idea. He’s got to try it sometime, since he’s our backup goalie now. Now that Smitty has been traded. Because it’s against some rule that you can’t have two really good goalies at one time. I guess by the time the summer came around, Tampa Bay wouldn’t be needing a goalie any more. Is that why we couldn’t use what was working for just a couple of more months? Because Smitty wouldn’t be tradeable after that?